


Colour in Your Steps

by Winner_of_the_disability_bingo



Series: Soulmate September 2020 [4]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmates, slightly less than canon-typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:33:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26277226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winner_of_the_disability_bingo/pseuds/Winner_of_the_disability_bingo
Summary: Soulmate September Day 4 - A trail of colour follows your soulmateThe first thing Hide noticed was the colour.
Relationships: Kaneki Ken | Sasaki Haise & Nagachika Hideyoshi
Series: Soulmate September 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904476
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	Colour in Your Steps

When they met, the first thing Hide had noticed was the colour. Bright red with streaks of purple flowed around a boy in the back of the class. At the time, Hide hadn’t known what soulmates were, but he knew that boy was special.

Ever since then, Hide and Kaneki had been inseparable. Nothing was a secret. Every person Kaneki had a crush on. Every one-night-stand Hide had. They knew it wasn’t very traditional of soulmates to not be in a relationship, but they didn’t care. They had been best friends for years. They were happy to stay that way.

They started going to lunch at Anteiku. Sometimes they stayed later than necessary just to check out the waitress and a few of the regulars. Hide noticed that Kaneki had been paying more attention to a purple-haired woman who often sat at the back of the café. She read Kaneki’s favourite books and it was obvious the other boy was infatuated. It took several days of nagging, but eventually, Hide convinced Kaneki to talk to the woman. He deserved to relax a bit, after all.

As Kaneki’s soulmate, Hide was allowed into his hospital room as soon as he came out of Emergency Care. The doctors hadn’t told him much. Only that Kaneki had needed emergency transplants and they had used the organs from the woman he was with. Hide was fairly certain that was illegal, but he hadn’t cared. If Kaneki was okay, then Hide was okay.

Hide was next to Kaneki when he opened his eyes for the first time. They didn’t open much, and he was only awake for about two seconds, but Hide saw it.

Hide spent the rest of the afternoon wondering what Kaneki’s ghoul eye meant. He knew Kaneki wasn’t a ghoul. They had eaten human food together since they were children. Hide had even told Kaneki that he believed ghouls were real because his great-grandfather was one. If Kaneki were a ghoul as well, then he would have felt safe to tell Hide.

One ghoul eye meant a half-ghoul. Some half-ghouls were able to eat human food. Still, it didn’t match up. Then, hide remembered what the doctors had said. It was possible that the woman who was killed in the accident was a ghoul. If her organs were transplanted into Kaneki it was –theoretically- possible that Kaneki could _become_ a ghoul.

Whether that was what happened, or Kaneki had been a ghoul from the beginning, Hide accepted him. When Kaneki came home, Hide would let him know that.

Less than a month later, Kaneki was back in their shared apartment. He seemed slightly out of it. Either because of the accident or because he just realised he was a ghoul. Hide decided to go shopping to give Kaneki some time to relax and settle back in.

When Hide returned, the apartment was a mess. Wrappings of half-eaten food were strewn across the floor. Several chairs were knocked over. The door to the bathroom was wide open. Soft sobbing came from their bedroom. So he wasn’t always a ghoul.

Carefully, Hide approached the door. He stopped in front of it and knocked softly.

“Kaneki, you okay?” The sobbing increased. Hide sighed and opened the door.

Hide’s side of the room was untouched. Kaneki’s side was as messy as the rest of the place. There were some dents in the wall that Kaneki probably caused by throwing something at it, or by punching it. Kaneki was sitting in the middle of his bed. His face was hidden in his hands.

Hide closed the door behind him and made his way around the mess to sit down next to the other boy. Kaneki turned away from him when he reached the bed. Hide sat down and wrapped an arm around him.

“You okay, ‘Neki?.” Kaneki curled up tighter. Hide took a deep breath. “Is this about you being a ghoul?” Kaneki stiffened and wrenched himself out of Hide’s embrace. He clearly wasn’t used to his new strength, because he pushed Hide all the way to the other side of the bed. Hide’s head banged against the wall and his vision went white for a second.

When his vision cleared, Hide saw Kaneki sitting at the end of the bed, staring at him. His right eye was as grey as it always had been. His left eye reminded Hide of the horror movies they used to watch when the were too young for them.

“How did you know?” Kaneki’s voice shook, and he kept glancing between where Hide was and where he’d been several seconds earlier. He obviously didn’t know his own strength now.

Hide smiled reassuringly at him and crept closer. When he was back in the same spot as before, he once again wrapped and arm around Kaneki. This time, he rested his hand on the other boy’s shoulder.

“I saw your eye when you first woke up.” Kaneki stiffened again before collapsing into Hide’s side.

-

After that, they were closer than they had ever been, something Hide didn’t even know was possible. They both started working at Anteiku at the same time. The idea that the entire place was run by ghouls was a little unsettling at first, but Hide got used to it.

Hide also started working as an intern at the CCG. He used his position to feed information to the café and to teach himself self-defence. Kaneki was worried at first. If the CCG found out he was soulmates with a ghoul, they might kill him. After a couple of days, Hide found out that the CCG didn’t think that ghouls could have soulmates, so he didn’t have to worry.

When Jason attacked, Hide wasn’t there. When he came by to pick Kaneki up and saw the café in ruins, he panicked, but Kaneki’s colour leaving the building and reaching over the other buildings reassured him.

Five days of preparation and debate later, Hide was leading Anteiku’s allies to Aogiri’s lair. To where Kaneki’s colour lead.

Unfortunately -or fortunately, depending on how you look at it- the CCG chose the same day to attack. Hide wasn’t worried about being recognised, he was wearing a modified version of Kaneki’s mask that Uta made for him. It was a mirror image of Kaneki’s mask, Hide’s right eye exposed whereas Kaneki’s left eye was exposed.

Touka had ordered him to stay out of the battle, but he couldn’t stop himself from following Kaneki’s colour through the building. He didn’t stay out of sight as well as he hoped, but everyone was too caught up in their fights to pay attention to him. He stopped in front of a locked door. The colour stopped there.

Everything was silent for a second before shouting erupted from behind the door, accompanied by several crashes. They sounded like screams of anger, morphing into screams of pain. Hide could only be grateful that they weren’t Kaneki’s screams.

Suddenly, the wall next to the door smashed open. Beneath the rubble, a large body groaned. Definitely not Kaneki. A small black, white and red form jumped onto the larger one and began ripping at their back.

Several minutes of crazed mumbling later, the person who was definitely Kaneki based on the swirl of red around him bit into what was probably Jason’s kakuhou.

When he was done, Kaneki finally noticed Hide in front of the now useless door. His eyes grew wide and he began to say something when a group of CCG investigators surrounded them. In the lead, was Amon, the investigator Kaneki had fought while protecting Hinami.

Kaneki growled and Hide noticed a centipede crawl out of his ear. That was _not_ good. Kaneki reared his kagune, preparing for a fight. The shake in his knees and the glaze on his eyes told Hide all he needed to know about how his soulmate was doing.

He couldn’t risk Kaneki getting himself hurt. Hide was the first to move, running around Kaneki and standing between him and the investigators. Behind his shoulder, Hide heard Kaneki’s noise of alarm.

Amon brandished his weapon towards them.

“Don’t take another step. You can’t defeat all of us, even with two of you. Surrender peacefully or we will take you by force.” Kaneki growled –man, he was in deep- and Hide chucked awkwardly.

“Is there the option of us just leaving and no one getting hurt?” Uta had installed a voice modulator, so he wasn’t worried about Amon recognising him by his voice. The investigators jabbed their weapons closer. Amon aimed his directly at Hide

“Don’t play games with us, ghoul” Kaneki roared and before Hide could do anything, he was wrapped in two of Kaneki’s tentacles and the investigators were scattered across the floor, their weapons coiled in Kaneki’s other four tentacles. Kaneki was in front of Amon, leaning over him.

“Don’t threaten my soulmate.” His voice wasn’t quite like Hide remembered. It was colder, stronger. Ignoring the shocked gasps around them, Hide tapped on Kaneki’s kagune, asking him to come closer.

For the first time in five days, Hide finally got a good look at Kaneki. His hair was white. Properly white, not bleached or died. His kakugan pulsed and glowed. His nails had turned black. He was covered in blood, Hide wasn’t sure how much was Jason’s and how much was his own. His teeth were sharp and stained with blood. A glance at Jason told Hide that Kaneki had eaten much more than just his kakuhou.

Hide sighed, taking a cloth and Kaneki’s mask out of his pocket. The fact that the thing hadn’t fallen out at some point was a miracle. He used the cloth to wipe the blood off Kaneki’s face. When he was done, he helped Kaneki fasten his mask on.

When they turned back around, the investigators had stood up. They were practically defenceless without their quinques. Kaneki faced Amon.

“Most humans believe that Ghouls can’t have soulmates. They can, if one half is human.” Hide waved and interrupted whatever Kaneki was going to say next

“Half ghouls are also way more likely to have soulmates than full-blooded ghouls, so us being soulmates didn’t really come as a surprise.” The CCG didn’t have to know about artificial ghouls. It was also true, according to Touka, that ghouls that were part human were more likely to have soulmates. “Now, we’ve had a long week, and we’d really just like to go home and sleep. One human to another, let us go?” the investigators shared looks amongst themselves.

“We won’t attack anyone. And I’ll give you your weapons back. Even though it’s immoral to make a weapons out of someone’s corpse.” Hide gently elbowed Kaneki in the ribs for the last statement. He leaned in to whisper in Kaneki’s ear.

“Anteiku is fighting around the place, and the Doves are mostly occupied with fighting Aogiri. If they say no, we can just throw their weapons at them and run.” Kaneki nodded and tightened his kagune around Hide’s waist.

The other investigators looked to Amon. Who looked cautiously between Hide and Kaneki. Kaneki tensed –even more, which Hide didn’t know was possible- and Hide ran a comforting hand through his hair. Eventually, Amon rose out of his fighting position, nodding.

Without breaking eye contact with Amon, kaneki punched a hole in the ceiling with one of his kagune, using the rest to shield Hide, threw the quinques across the hallway and lifted both Hide and himself onto the next floor.

-

An hour later, they were back at Anteiku. The others had fallen back once they saw that Kaneki was safe. Now, they were taking care of slow-healing injuries. Hide leaned against Kaneki, still holding onto one of the other boy’s tentacles. Kaneki was safe, and that was all that mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> I love feral Kaneki a bit too much and that might have bled through here.  
> I've been considering turning this into a full-length-multi-chapter fic, what do you guys think?


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